Href Lang Errors

[BeckyKey]

Hi

Im getting href lang errors in my site audit for having no self referntial tags. I can't see anything wrong? Can anyone enlighten me

From this page ** http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/0-4-tonne-wll-6mm-single-leg-wire-rope-sling-580a078n**

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[BeckyKey]

Hi

It's flagging up on all pages of the site in my SEM rush audit, I just can't identify what's wrong

Thanks for checking!

[davebuts]

Hi Becky,

Along the lines of what James said, it's because this is not the canonical URL for the product.

The URL is: http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/0-4-tonne-wll-6mm-single-leg-wire-rope-sling-580a078n

But your canonical and hreflang tags don't match this URL.

You will get errors for any URLs that don't have a self-referring hreflang tags, and any URLs that don't have reciprocal hreflang tags from the alternate versions specified.

I would work with your devs to only display hreflang tags on canonical URLs - not on canonicalized URLs.

Cheers,

David

[gfiorelli1]

I see that that product has two Urls:

1. http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/single-leg-wire-rope-slings
2. http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/0-4-tonne-wll-6mm-single-leg-wire-rope-sling-580a078n

The first one is the Url you indicate as canonical and the second one is the one that you canonicalized toward the first and where the mistake is flagged. I suppose the same happens in the .ie version.

Formally, I don't see any mistake in how the hreflang has been implemented in the 2nd url, because if you really mean to have it canonicalized toward the 1st, then is totally correct to use the canonical url in the self-referential url and the en-ie hreflang annotations.

I checked the Urls with Screaming Frog, setting it to crawl the hreflang's urls, and it doesn't show any error... so, if that kind of mistake is presented only by the SEMRush Audit... then that's a mistake of the SEMRush audit.

However, does this mistake appear in your Google Search Console?

[davebuts]

Hi Gianluca,

Just on what you said here:

"Formally, I don't see any mistake in how the hreflang has been implemented in the 2nd url, because if you really mean to have it canonicalized toward the 1st, then is totally correct to use the canonical url in the self-referential url and the en-ie hreflang annotations."

I kind of understand what you're saying about it not being wrong, but is does the hreflang become redundant because the URL is canonicalized and doesn't validate?

For Screaming Frog, did you have it set to "Respect Canonical"? If so, could that be the reason no errors were found?

Without having access to GSC, I like to use Dejan's Hreflang Testing Tool to quickly check for hreflang errors - and it does report errors with the example URL.

Cheers,

David

[BeckyKey]

Thank you everyone! I should have noticed this, so thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks for your help!

Becky